Forefront
BLASTing Off to Help
Pro bono service trips across the U.S. provide vital support and lifetime memories
LENDING A HAND: The BLAST Atlanta group was one of six student cohorts that assisted legal services organizations over spring break.
Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trips (BLAST) enable students to gain hands-on experience all over the country helping organizations aid communities in need. Funded by the Pro Bono Program, this year’s excursions featured six groups of 10 students, each co-led by two students who foster relationships with their group’s supervising attorneys and handle travel logistics.
SHARP FOCUS: Some of the Tucson group members take a break from their immigration work along the U.S.-Mexico border to enjoy the desert landscape.
“BLAST is a great way to apply what you’ve learned in law school to the real world,” says Ami Shirriff ’24, who co-led the Alaska trip after joining last year’s Hawai‘i BLAST group.
Noting the many legal and leadership skills that BLAST develops, Pro Bono Program Director Deborah Schlosberg says the students “invest their time and their hearts into this service learning experience” and that “the lessons they learn stay with them long after their week of work.”
Here’s a look at what this year’s BLAST students tackled:
- Alaska: Half the group worked with the Alaska Public Interest Research Group to address various legal needs, including consumer justice and environmental justice, while the other half helped the First Alaskans Institute support Alaska Natives through Indigenous sovereignty research and environmental and resource issues.
- Atlanta: Students worked with the Atlanta Volunteer Legal Foundation’s Safe & Stable Families Project and Kids In Need of Defense helping victims of domestic violence get restraining orders and helping children avoid deportation.
- California’s Central Valley: In this area drastically underserved by legal practitioners, one group of students worked with Central California Legal Services staffing a domestic violence clinic and a clinic for incarcerated people re-entering the community, and conducting research on housing rights with natural disasters and working on “know your rights” materials for the community. Another group worked with the local organization researching immigration laws and helping to file asylum applications for children living in the area.
- Hawai‘i: Working under the supervision of the Legal Aid Society of Hawai‘i, students provided direct client services. Through the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, they conducted legal research on cases affecting Native Hawaiian cultural and land rights. In the months leading up to the trip, students focused on Hawai‘i’s history and culture and emphasized the anti-colonial approach to human-centered pro bono work.
- Mississippi: Students worked with the University of Mississippi School of Law’s MacArthur Justice Center, under the supervision of Professor Cliff Johnson, on legal matters involving reproductive rights and health care issues.
- U.S.-Mexico Border/Tucson, Arizona: This group worked with the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, which provides free legal and social services to detained adults and children threatened with deportation. Students visited the physical border, an hour’s drive from Tucson, including the 30-foot fence at the border crossing into Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.
“The BLAST program is a special, caring, and genuine space,” says Hawai‘i trip co-leader Kaleinani Nallira ’24. “Students can find their place and find others who are just as passionate about serving underrepresented communities.” — Gwyneth K. Shaw